Dullness.

Hmm. Been feeling lethargic this past week... Mostly cos of the dreams I've been having at night which make me very zombie-like during the day. Also have been super unproductive! I haven't practised at all the whole week... Everything's down lah.

I think I know why.

I just don't want to admit it.

Cos I've always thought of myself as a logical person!

Despite recent discoveries about myself which say i'm actually pretty impulsive.

Funny human feelings which cannot be explained by science, go away!

Must be logical.

Don't do illogical/stupid things.

Must be logical.

Aiyah, SO DOWN.

Don't come talk to me. Lazy to make the effort to sound all nice and cheery and answer insignificant questions and make small talk.

Not when the person I want to talk to doesn't want to talk to me.

Short one.

Ok look! This is a letter i received from O2 two days ago...

MR Malaysia Hazel??!

Please lah... Who would ever name their child Malaysia?? Or even America or England or Germany or Africa for that matter.

=.=

***

This is a photo I found when I was looking through the pictures in my laptop!

100% genuine and not edited! So cool right.. I didn't know I'm such a good photographer.

=P

Me Again?!

Ok. I got things to talk about!

1. Not very recently I got a bit home- and friend-sick, and so I took this picture and used it as my phone wallpaper! I really like this photo lor Nick, it's like "Wah, happy times!"

(Maybe plus "Wah, not-so-fat times!" also lah.)



2. Last week, I learned how to sit like the meditation gurus! Like so. (View below picture)

See how twisted my feet look? Kids, please don't try this at home! And forgive the horrible pout of my lips... Doing a pose like this required very intense concentration!

3. On the 16th of February we celebrated Fasnacht here in Germany... Weeks before that we started buying cookies/biscuits which look like this from the supermarkets. They're so delicious I tell you! Like very light japanese cookies you can get from Baker's Cottage but a lot a lot lighter lah.

Hao Zi says her school teacher says that this biscuit is made from only oil and flour with the following recipe:

==> Boil oil, pour in flour.
==> Flour puffs up.
==> Tada! Fasnachtschuechli.

So disgusting right! But it's actually very yummy. Got icing sugar all over it!

We actually went to watch the 2-hour long parade in the city centre and Hao Zi's mom took so many photos the battery died but when they got home the photos had somehow disappeared (creepy!) so I don't have first hand shots. What I do have are these:




Taken from Google. Yes, they really dress up like this and parade all around the city while throwing sweets for the people. For some reason most of their costumes have funny scales/feathers on them... Couldn't find the reason for this on Wiki.

4. This was taken the day Sylvia and Hao Zi went to Belgium for a competition. I met them for breakfast at McD's at the train station before they left.

Tada! Breakfast for four. The girl at the counter was like O.o "Whoa!" when I went to order.

5. The people here in Freiburg quite frequently gather for demonstrations like these:

Which is really quite annoying because they interrupt all the public transport to the city centre and create so much noise. But! There are always these handsome people:

To maintain order! They are so so so handsome lah. All of them! Maybe it's their uniform or maybe it's just the aura. A bit like Pn Teo's aura lor.

6. One day when I had an exam in uni, the public transport people decided to go on strike for one whole day. Consequently, I had to walk one and a half hours to uni... And then another one and a half back! Annoying lah these people always on strike for one thing or another.

***

Ok exhausted my random topics edi.

My mom is arriving in Freiburg next Tuesday! And dad is arriving on the 3rd of April! Then they'll both stay till my birthday and then only leave after that. Wuahaha I'm such a princess. We get to go sightseeing all over Europe also! Got to plan our itinerary now.

Woohoo life is good. =)

Christmas!

Ta da~~!!! Thanks so much for the cards, you guys! It was such a suprise when I received it (I don't get a lot of mail, only from the bank and phone and insurance companies) and even more suprising when I noticed it came from Malaysia and then even MORE suprising when a card appeared! Plus it arrived more than a week ago... It's going up on my wall today :)

Wanted to send one to each of you guys too but then realized I don't have your addresses! Which is absolutely ridiculous... Leave your addresses in the comments please :)

Where I got to know almost all of you... The alien in the smarties' class. Miss you guys!

Was cold last week...

Snow turned to slush...

And I'm going to Italy tomorrow!

Merry Christmas to all of you, dong zhi kuai le and Happy New Year!

Take care and have fun...

:)

Spin, world, spin!

Hahahahaha I've just finished a theory class at the uni! Everyone brought a little food to share around cos we're sort of celebrating Christmas with the class today and someone brought 3 bottles of Glühwein too! It's a sort of red wine mix cinnamon mix orange mix lime.... 10% alcohol! My goodness first time I drank so much with only friends and no family and halfway through the class my head started spinning! Actually not a lot lah only two cups! Which is 400ml! Hahahaha Nick I had my first taste of drunkenness without you! Aww I'm so sorry let's go to Langkawi ok! Duty free! Hahahaha omg the world is really spinning... Don't know how I got down the flight of stairs! Probably stumbled and tumbled down! And now I still have to watch a drums concert! Omg world, please stop spinning! Oh and hahaha our class ended 45 minutes late cos we were the last class and everyone just stayed back to drink and chat and eat and we only left when the last drop of wine was gone and a guy was staring forlornly at his cup! Hehehehe and everyone's face was just red and then the dizzy goofy laughter started and then everyone started laughing at nothing and omg hahahaha today is such a good day!

:)

(no title)

Just some photos! Collections from the relatively recent past...

***

1. [July 2009] People hanging on to each other for dear life trying to keep upright longer than the other group. Played this with our small youth group in church.


2. [July/August 2008] Law Olympiad! Good experience cos both teams came 4th and 5th... And a little class-skipping added to the fun too!


3. [December 2008] Sunway Lagoon with close friends! Miss you peopleeeeee~~~


4. [January/February 2009] Flood in Lawas! Mom's hometown. It was Chinese New Year and suddenly the floods came and the water supply was cut everywhere so everyone ate out and so my grandfather's restaurant was full until they also ran out of food and water and had to close shop. =D


5. [June 2008] Sad kitten in pet shop. Cats are all beautiful lah. And I mean ALL. All so elegant! Not like puppies... They all look so goofy with their tongues hanging out.


6. [May 2008] Chicken rice balls in Melaka. Ignore the ads about them! The normal rice tastes way better than the balls.


7. [May 2008] Laksamana Cheng Ho's boat? Also in Melaka.


8. [August 2009] Komura! Japanese buffet... It's somewhere in KL in a hotel which I think is called Corus or Coral or something. Food is not bad! And you get to sit cross-legged on the floor.


9. [June 2009] Cologne Hochschule fuer Musik! Where I failed the entrance exams. XD

10. [March 2009] The one day where lots of people switched off all their lights and lit candles instead. My house! Looks quite homey in this photo...


11. [March 2009] This kid! We were lining up behind him at the cashier's at Giant... He refused to get up from his apparently very comfortable seat while his mom had to pay for the watermelons... Hence the hand on butt. Mom told me off for taking pictures of other people without their permission... Says I'll get sued or beaten up one day.


12. [January 2009] There was a cooking competition at my cousins' church in Lawas... My group's dish! All we had was tofu... Looks yummy but tastes very very bland.


13. [31st December 2008] Fireworks in the sky to celebrate the new year! Whole family watched this from 1Utama.


14. [November 2008] Stephen Tong rally for kids! Turnout was not bad... It was held in a stadium.


15. [October 2008] Bunch of voodoo dolls I gave to a bunch of friends when I came back from Fukuoka, Japan. Hope yours are all still intact! Mine has a skirt... It's turned grey and keeps falling off.


***

Hazel

Of Blades and Romance

Two nights ago I went to bed with an unusually active mind. Maybe it was the chamomile tea I drank or the few episodes of Chuck / House / Bleach I was watching before that.

And that night, I dreamt! I don't usually dream a lot, actually very very seldom... Probably about once every few months I think. And this dream ah!

It started as like some cheesy romantic film where _______ and I went dating and we walked around and around someplace... Can't really remember this part much but the weird thing is it was like I was watching myself on tv... Third person view lah. Now when I think back it's like trying to penetrate a thick fog.

And then ah!

It suddenly turned into a weird scene where I was wearing the billowing shinigami baju (go watch Bleach) and I had a zanpaktou too! It was huge and shiny and meat cleaver-ish... Looked quite like Ichigo's one lo! And ah... NICKOLAI was there too, also in the shinigami baju and carrying a sword of his own. It had quite a cheapo look... like the kiddy plastic swords you can find in Toys 'R' Us. (Sorry nick XD)

Then for the rest of the dream we rushed around a Freiburg shopping centre called Zentrum Oberwiehre slaying monsters! Running up and down the escalators... Suprisingly we weren't that good at jumping down from great heights. And when we fight ah, fuiyoh got the half-bent knees stance and yelling and everything leh! And these monsters ah, very scary one you know! You chop through it once, it'll dissolve and another new body appears!

And on and on it went until I finally woke up at 6.30 feeling exhausted. Kill too many monsters edi lah.

Hahaha thought I'd write about it here so I won't forget... Give you guys a good laugh also.

XD

Time creeps by like snail slime when you're having a real scheiße class.

''No, no, no, no, no, no.''

''You must speak!''

''Sing more!''

''Phrasing!''

''Don't use your wrist and arm, use your fingers!''

Then after all that has been corrected,

''It sounds unnatural! Music should be natural!''

Argh.

So frustrating when I think I'm doing something but it doesn't show in my playing. Even more frustrating when the teacher gets frustrated. Even more frustrating when the teacher doesn't give you time and chances to try things out before expecting you to get it right. Even more frustrating when you have to skip lunch for a lousy class like this.

''No, no, no, no, no.''

Today I spent one hour... ONE HOUR... on ONE PAGE... during piano class.

After that one page I thought I'd be free to go edi, manatau the next person came ONE HOUR LATE. So we spent the next hour on yet another ONE PAGE of another piece.

Yes, I had a very lousy class today.

Lone bowl out in the cold.

Today I found out I can send files from my phone to my laptop using Bluetooth!! Hahahaha. *proud*

But to the main point of this post...

Today I burned two hours of my precious afternoon to make this!

*tada*

Potato salad!!

Looks so yummy right? Too bad I had to leave home again before it was done chilling so I'll tell you how it tastes tomorrow. =D

But! This is how I made it:

First you take three medium sized potatoes (or 6 small or 2 big, you count la okay) and one medium carrot and boil them until they're soft.
Then you take one egg and boil that until it's hard boiled.
In the meantime you take 10cm of cucumber and remove the seeds then slice it very thinly.
Then you take one small onion and slice that thinly too.
Then you put them both into bowls and then add a little salt then wait till they ooze their juices out then squeeze dry.
By that time your potatoes and carrots should be done edi, so take them out and peel! Careful ah, very hot.
Then you cut the potatoes into small pieces and slice the carrot, then add some salt and pepper.
Then you take the hard-boiled egg and chop that up.
Then you wait for the potatoes and carrots to cool.
Then you can mix everything in edi! Add a lot of mayonnaise and then chill your salad for at least one hour.
Then.... Bon appetit!

Hehehhe. Welcome to 'Cooking With Hazel Beh'! Hehehehhe.

As of now my salad is STILL chilling like so:


... outside the house cos the fridge is full edi.

Hehehhe.

Okay spent too much time typing this, late for class edi! Oh no oh no.

Tomorrow

Sunday morning the 25th of October at 3am.

Germany time shall be adjusted back one hour! So I'll be 7 hours behind Malaysian time...

Daylight saving time! Beginning or ending ah?

I am in this?

When I got this e-mail from Hazel, I knew less of what it actually meant. I mean, what in the world could the word 'contribute' in that sentence mean? I'm supposed to be some sponsor for the formation of the new RojakLah Corporation or something?

It took my quite a long time before I finally realized that I've actually been made into the latest recruitment of The RojakLah clan.
Welcome, me!


And so it was Diwali last Saturday. Happy Diwali to everyone that reads this! Basically, Diwali means Festival of Lights, which explains all the lamps lit by Hindus in the temple & at their houses during the celebration.

I had my open house on Sunday, which was attended by almost 40 of my friends, Roy being the only one from The RojakLah Clan. I never knew how it was like to be the host of such a big crowd as it was normally less than half of that.

The dishes served to the pleasure of everyone present were:

Briyani rice

Chicken curry


Dry mutton curry

Fried chicken, the ON DEMAND food of the day


Vegetable salad dressed with mayonnaise

My mom started her work in the kitchen at around 7 in the morning, and she never stopped cooking till 7 in the evening! There were people coming and coming and coming, one after another as the dishes started going less and less and less, finishing one after another.

I really do feel for her. She never complained even after all she did. I don't think you could find many mothers out there who would just cook the entire day & not complain when you invite that many guests. She even sent my brother to buy more frozen chicken which she marinated and fried, since everyone went, "Is there more friend chicken? I want moreee". And their wish, my mom granted, with her magic frying pan!

Apart from the fried chicken, there was something that was highly in demand. Its the symbol of Indians and Diwali. Its arguably the most popular Indian snack that everybody just loves to munch on.

Presenting.....

the Muruku!

Wanna have some taste of this magical snack? Just come over to my house.

Autumn

In the beginning, all was bright and sunny and the temperature hovered around 15 °C. Then came the extremely foggy and dreary day...

After which the temperature plunged to a chilly 0-10°C...


And then autumn was here! Season of the red and yellow dying leaves...



And fruit-bearing apple trees...

Hmm... Do my eyes deceive me? Is this autumn? And the news said that cities in south Germany were experiencing their first snowfalls. And Freiburg is in the south! Oh my, are we slow or what.


Anyway, on one of those dark and dreary days I went to IKEA. (Sorry no pictures of IKEA, but you already know how IKEA looks like right?)


And then just as we were leaving, hailstones fell from the sky!



Like fat little Santas jumping and bouncing off the ground...



And then after that I visited my first flea market! Didn't buy anything (waste of my three euros) but if you're really looking, you could probably get really good deals here... Like a winter coat for four euros or something. Plus you get a stamp on the back of your palm in the shape of a key!


The flea market was held at the grounds of a mini fair and this giant distant relative of ours was grinning creepily down at us at the entrance. Poser!



They also have this ride called the "Revolution". This video was taken during the tamest part of the ride, it goes round and round like that many many times and then during the last round it spins the passengers 360° four times on the way down. *shivers*

And finally, here are some random photos.



Hmph. Unsightly tram/electric lines.


Neighbour's house looking quite autumn-ly with the red and yellow creeper plants...



Proof of cold weather. See the mist in the background? At times like these the 10-minute walk up the hill to our house seems extra brutal, especially with the cold wind slaughtering our faces. But then the moment you step into the house and feel your face thawing and your specs clouding up in the warmth... Ahh, priceless.

In other news, first two weeks of first semester has been fine. I have so far survived three successive piano classes with Frau Chen with no nervous breakdowns! The class schedule is proving to be a bit of a problem though. It's slowly becoming a trend for me to agree on a time slot with Frau C then go home/out, THEN remember I have another class at that time, then double back/send a text to ask to change the class time. Haish. Blame the birdy brain la.

I have also been missing Malaysian food. But my cooking is improving! We have a wider choice of dishes now, and the alternative of eating at Hao Zi's place once in a while. Heh.

And! Now that I'm here I realize it's good to be able to speak Chinese cos of the large number of Taiwanese students here. But when I speak to them I feel the pressure to make my Chinese sound 'nicer' or more proper, and then it feels so unnatural. Manglish, my loyalty will forever lie with you.

And! I have had no news from you people for a while. What's up? Post here laa. Or at least short snippets on Facebook. Yesh, I've become a Facebook stalker lately.

Hope you're all enjoying your form6/college/uni lives! And good luck to all those taking their finals now.

=)